The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEnglish PoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: English PoemsAuthor: Richard Le GallienneRelease date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #10913]Most recently updated: December 23, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: English PoemsAuthor: Richard Le GallienneRelease date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #10913]Most recently updated: December 23, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Title: English Poems
Author: Richard Le Gallienne
Author: Richard Le Gallienne
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #10913]Most recently updated: December 23, 2020
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS ***
Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
By
Richard Le Gallienne
London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street.
Boston: Copland & Day 69 Cornhill.
_First EditionSeptember 1892
Second EditionOctober 1892
Third EditionJanuary 1894
Fourth EditionRevised April 1895_
To Sissie Le Gallienne
_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth—for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver.
Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses—for what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the comb'—as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise … and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.'
Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to the little bookclad study to read—Heaven bless us!—you, perhaps, Mary Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!!
Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, then came in the sweet o' the year.
Yours now as then_,
R. Le G.
May 14th, 1892.
_Epistle Dedicatory,
To the Reader_,
i. Preludes,
ii. Prelude—'I make this rhyme,'
iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,'
iv. Once,
v. The Two Daffodils,
vi. 'Why did she marry him?'
vii. The Lamp and the Star,
viii. Orbits,
ix. Never—Ever,
x. Love's Poor,
xi. Comfort of Dante,
xii. A Lost Hour,
xiii. Met once more,
xiv. A June Lily,
xv. Regret
xvi. Love Afar
xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles?
Postscript
To my Wife, Mildred
The Destined Maid: a Prayer
With some old Love Verses
In a copy of Mr. Swinburne'sTristram
Comfort at Parting
Happy Letter
Primrose and Violet
'Juliet and her Romeo,'
In her Diary
Two Parables
A Love Letter
In the Night
The Constant Lover
The Wonder-Child
The House of Venus
Satiety
What of the Darkness?
Ad Cimmerios
Old Love Letters
Death in a London Lodging
Time Flies
So soon Tired
Autumn
A Frost Fancy
The World is Wide
Saint Charles!
Good-Night
Beatrice
A Child's Evensong
An Epitaph on a Goldfish
Beauty Accurst
To a Dead Friend
Sunset in the City
The City in Moonlight
Inscriptions
The Décadent to his Soul
To a Poet
The Passionate Reader to his Poet
Matthew Arnold
'Tennyson' at the Farm
'The Desk's Dry Wood,'
A Library in a Garden
On the Morals of Poets
Faery Gold
All Sung
Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe
Art was a palace once, things great and fair,And strong and holy, found a temple there:Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men.O shall me hear an English song again!Still English larks mount in the merry morn,An English May still brings an English thorn,Still English daisies up and down the grass,Still English love for English lad and lass—Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!
Thou nightingale that for six hundred yearsSang to the world—O art thou husht at last!For, not of thee this new voice in our ears,Music of France that once was of the spheres;And not of thee these strange green flowers that springFrom daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting.
Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,'Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name,England, I bring a song of little fame;Not as one worthy but as loving thee,Not as a singer, only as a child.
To R.K. Leather(July 16th, 1892.)
It happened in that great Italian landWhere every bosom heateth with a star—At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strandThe Adriatic filcheth near and far—In that same past where Dante's dream-days are,That one Francesca gave her youthful goldUnto an aged carle to bolt and bar;Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,How could she give that love unto a miser old?
Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,Nor fear because some dotard owned the root;Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thighAnd kept not all his valour for his lute;One who could dare as well as sing and sigh.Ah! then were hearts to love, but they are long gone by.
Ye lily-wives so happy in the nest,Whose joy within the gates of duty springs,Blame not Love's poor, who, if they would be blest,Must steal what comes to you with marriage rings:Ye pity the poor lark whose scarce-tried wingsFaint in the net, while still the morning airWith brown free throats of all his brethren sings,And can it be ye will not pity her,Whose youth is as a lark all lost to singing there?
In opportunity of dear-bought joyRich were this twain, for old Lanciotto, heWho was her lord, was brother of her boy,And in one home together dwelt the three,With brothers two beside; and he and sheSat at one board together, in one faneTheir voices rose upon one hymn, ah me!Beneath one roof each night their limbs had lain,As now in death they share the one eternal pain.
As much as common men can love a flowerUnto Lanciotto was Francesca dear,'Tis not on such Love wields his jealous power;And therefore Paolo moved him not to fear,Though he so green with youth and he so sere.Nor yet indeed was wrong, the hidden thingGrew at each heart, unknown of each, a year,—Two eggs still silent in the nest through spring,May draws so near to June, and not yet time to sing!
Yet oft, indeed, through days that gave no signHad but Francesca turned about and readPaolo's bright eyes that only dared to shineOn the dear gold that glorified her head;Ere all the light had from their circles fledAnd the grey Honour darkened all his face:They had not come to June and nothing said,Day followed day with such an even pace,Nor night succeeded night and left no starry trace.
Or, surely, had the flower Paolo pressedIn some sweet volume when he put it by.Told how his mistress drew it to her breastAnd called upon his name when none was nigh;Had but the scarf he kissed with piteous cryBut breathed again its secret unto her,Or had but one of every little sighEach left for each been love's true messenger:They surely had not kept that winter all the year.
Yea! love lay hushed and waiting like a seed,Some laggard of the season still abedThough the sun calls and gentle zephyrs plead,And Hope that waited long must deem it dead;Yet lo! to-morrow sees its shining headSinging at dawn 'mid all the garden throng:Ah, had it known, it had been earlier sped—Was it for fear of day it slept so long,Or were its dreams of singing sweeter than the song?
But what poor flower can symbol all the mightAnd all the magnitude, great Love, of thee?Ah, is there aught can image thee arightIn earth or heaven, how great or fair it be?We watch the acorn grow into the tree,We watch the patient spark surprise the mine,But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree?What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine,That wrecks a world but bids heaven's soaring steeples shine?
A god that hath no earthly metaphor,A blinding word that hath no earthly rhyme,Love! we can only call and no name more;As the great lonely thunder rolls sublime,As the great sun doth solitary climb,And we have but themselves to know them by,Just so Love stands a stranger amid Time:The god is there, the great voice speaks on high,We pray, 'What art thou, Lord?' but win us no reply.
So in the dark grew Love, but feared to flower,Dreamed to himself, but never spake a word,Burned like a prisoned fire from hour to hour,Sang his dear song like an unheeded bird;Waiting the summoning voice so long unheard,Waiting with weary eyes the gracious signTo bring his rose, and tell the dream he dared,The tremulous moment when the star should shine,And each should ask of each, and each should answer—'Thine.'
Winter to-day, but lo! to-morrow spring!They waited long, but oh at last it came,Came in a silver hush at evening;Francesca toyed with threads upon a frame,Hard by young Paolo read of knight and dameThat long ago had loved and passed away:He had no other way to tell his flame,She dare not listen any other way—But even that was bliss to lovers poor as they.
The world grew sweet with wonder in the westThe while he read and while she listened there,And many a dream from out its silken nestStole like a curling incense through the air;Yet looked she not on him, nor did he dare:But when the lovers kissed in ParadiseHis voice sank and he turned his gaze on her,Like a young bird that flutters ere it flies,—And lo! a shining angel called him from her eyes.
Then from the silence sprang a kiss like flame,And they hung lost together; while aroundThe world was changed, no more to be the sameMeadow or sky, no little flower or soundAgain the same, for earth grew holy ground:While in the silence of the mounting moonInfinite love throbbed in the straining boundOf that great kiss, the long-delaying boon,Granted indeed at last, but ended, ah! so soon.
As the great sobbing fulness of the seaFills to the throat some void and aching cave,Till all its hollows tremble silently,Pressed with sweet weight of softly-lapping wave:So kissed those mighty lovers glad and brave.And as a sky from which the sun has goneTrembles all night with all the stars he gaveA firmament of memories of the sun,—So thrilled and thrilled each life when that great kiss was done.
But coward shame that had no word to sayIn passion's hour, with sudden icy clangSlew the bright morn, and through the tarnished dayAn iron bell from light to darkness rang:She shut her ears because a throstle sang,She dare not hear the little innocent bird,And a white flower made her poor head to hang—To be so white! once she was white as curd,But now—'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word.
The pearly line on yonder hills afarWithin the dawn, when mounts the lark and singsBy the great angel of the morning star,—That was his love, and all free fair fresh thingsThat move and glitter while the daylight springs:To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus!To lose the dream—O silly beating wings—Great dream so splendid and miraculous:O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us.
She turned her mind upon the holy onesWhose love lost here was love in heaven tenfold,She thought of Lucy, that most blessed of nunsWho sent her blue eyes on a plate of goldTo him who wooed her daily for her love—'Mine eyes!' 'Mine eyes!' 'Here,—go in peace, they are!'But ever love came through the midnight grove,Young Love, with wild eyes watching from afar,And called and called and called until the morning star.
Ah, poor Francesca, 'tis not such as thouThat up the stony steeps of heaven climb;Take thou thy heaven with thy Paolo now—Sweet saint of sin, saint of a deathless rhyme,Song shall defend thee at the bar of Time,Dante shall set thy fair young glowing faceOn the dark background of his theme sublime,And Thou and He in your superb disgraceStill on that golden wind of passion shall embrace.
* * * * *
So love this twain, but whither have they passed?Ah me, that dark must always follow day,That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last,Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray:Merciful God, is there no other way?And pen, O must thou of the ending write,The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay,Folded together, weary with delight,Within the sumptuous petals of the rose of night.
Yea, for Lanciotto found them: many an hourEre their dear joy had run its doomèd date,Had they, in silken nook and blossomed bower,All unsuspect the blessed apple ate,Who now must grind its core predestinate.Kiss, kiss, poor losing lovers, nor denyOne little tremor of its bliss, for FateCometh upon you, and the dark is nighWhere all, unkissed, unkissing, learn at length to lie.
Bent on some journey of the state's concernThey deemed him, and indeed he rode thereonBut questioned Paolo—'What if he return!''Nay, love, indeed he is securely goneAs thou art surely here, beloved one,He went ere sundown, and our moon is here—A fear, love, in this heart that yet knew none!'How could he fright that little velvet earWith last night's dream and all its ghostly fear!
So did he yield him to her eager breast,And half forgot, but could not quite forget,No sweetest kiss could put that fear to rest,And all its haggard vision chilled him yet;Their warder moon in nameless trouble set,There seemed a traitor echo in the place,A moaning wind that moaned for lovers met,And once above her head's deep sunk embraceHe saw—Death at the window with his yellow face.
Had that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins,Bent in a weary huddle on his steed,In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes,Making a clattering halt in all that speed:—'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed,So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,'And on the night flashed pictures of the deed.'Come!'—and he dug his charger's panting sides,And all the homeward dark tore by in roaring tides.
As some great lord of acres when a thiefSteals from his park some flower he never sees,Calls it a lily fair beyond belief,Prisons the wretch, and fines before he frees;Such jealous madness did Lanciotto seize:All in an instant is Francesca dear,He claims the wife he never cared to please,All in an instant seems his castle near,—And those poor lovers sleep, forgot at last their fear.
His horse left steaming at his journey's end,Up through his palace stairs with springing treadHe strode; the silence met him like a friend,Fain to dissuade him from that deed of dread,Making a breeze about his burning head,Laying large hands of comfort on his soul;Within the ashes of his cheek burned redA long-shut rose of youth, as to the goalOf death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole.
He caught a sound as of a rose's breath,He caught another breath of deeper lung,Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death;He drew aside the arras where they clungIn the dim light, so lovely and so young—They lay in sin as in a cradle there,Twin babes that in one bosom nestling hung:Even Lanciotto paused, ah, will he spare?Who could not quite forgive a wrong that is so fair!
The grave old clock ticked somewhere in the gloom,A dozen waiting seconds rose and fellEre his pale dagger flickered in the room,Then quenched its corpse-light in their bosoms' swell—'Thus, dears, I mate you evermore in hell.'Their blood ran warm about them and they sighedFor the mad smiter did his work too well,Just drew together softly and so died,Fell very still and strange, and moved not side by side.
Yea, moved not, though two hours he watched the twainAnd heard their blood drip drip upon the floor,Twice with stern voice he spake to them again,And then, a little tenderly, once more,—'Thus, dears, in hell I mate you evermore.'And when the curious fingers of the dayUnravelled all the dark, and morning wore,And the young light played round them where they lay,The souls were many leagues upon the hellward way.
N.B.—This sequence of poems has appeared in former editions under the title of 'Love Platonic.'
1Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moonThat bringeth in the happy singing weatherGroweth to pearly queendom, and full soonShall Love and Song go hand in hand together;For all the pain that all too long hath waitedIn deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last,And the bright babe Death gave the Love he matedShall leap to light and kiss the weeping past.
For all the silver morning is a-glimmerWith gleaming spears of great Apollo's host,And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmerHurled from the headlands of some shining coast.O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing,Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep,Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging,A bough of song above a sea of sleep.
2Who is the lady I sing?Ah, how can I tell thee her praiseFor whom all my life's but the stringOf a rosary painful of days;
Which I count with a curious smileAs a miser who hoardeth his gain,Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while,I but gather to waste again.
Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years,As a country maid greedy of flowers,Each day brimming over with tears,And I scatter like petals its hours;
And I trample them under my feetIn a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine,And the breath of their dying is sweet,And the blood of their hearts is as wine.
O, I throw me low down on the groundAnd I bury my face in their death,And only I rise at the soundOf a wind as it scattereth,
As it scattereth sweetly the driedLeaves withered and brittle and sereOf days of old years that have died—And, O, it is sweet in my ear
And I rise me and build me a pyreOf the whispering skeleton things,And my heart laugheth low with the fire,Laugheth high with the flame as it springs;
And above in the flickering glareI mark me the boughs of my tree,My tree of the years, growing bare.Growing bare with the scant days to be.
Then I turn to my beads and I prayFor the axe at the root of the tree—Last flower, last bead—ah! last dayThat shall part me, my darling, from thee!
And I pray for the knife on the stringOf this rosary painful of days:But who is the Lady I sing?Ah, how can I tell thee her praise!
I make this rhyme of my lady and meTo give me ease of my misery,Of my lady and me I make this rhymeFor lovers in the after-time.And I weave its warp from day to dayIn a golden loom deep hid awayIn my secret heart, where no one goesBut my lady's self, and—no one knows.
With bended head all day I poreOn a joyless task, and yet beforeMy eyes all day, through each weary hour,Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower.Like rain it comes through the dusty air,Like sun on the meadows to think of her;O sweet as violets in early springThe flower-girls to the city bring,O, healing-bright to wintry eyesAs primrose-gold 'neath northern skies—But O for fit thing to compareWith the joy I have in the thought of her!So all day long doth her holy faceBring fragrance to the barren place,And whensoe'er it comes nearest me,My loom it weaveth busily.
Some days there be when the loom is stillAnd my soul is sad as an autumn hill,But how to tell the blessed timeWhen my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme!Think on the humming afternoonWithin some busy wood in June,When nettle patches, drunk with the sun,Are fiery outposts of the shade;While gnats keep up a dizzy reel,And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade,Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:—Hour when some poet-wit might feignThe drowsy tune of the throbbing airThe weaving of the gossamerIn secret nooks of wood and lane—The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers,Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours.Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer,If truly that the mystic golden boom,Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom,As I sit in the light of the thought of her;And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day,This parti-coloured roundelay;Weaving for ease of misery,Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me,Weaving, weaving this warp of rhymeFor lovers in the after-time.
My lady, lover, may never be mineIn the same sweet way that thine is thine,My lady and I may never standBy the holy altar hand in hand,My lady and I may never restThrough the golden midnight breast to breast,Nor share long days of happy lightSweet moving in each other's sight:Yea, even must we ever missThe honey of the chastest kiss.
But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor singA pretty dalliance with grief—but trySome metre like a sky,Wherein to setStars that may linger yetWhen I, thy master, shall have come to die.Twitter and tweetThy carollingsOf little things,Of fair and sweet;For it is meet,O robin red!That little themeHath little song,That little headHath little dream,And long.But we have starry business, such a griefAs Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf,While all the distance echoes of the wain;Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isleOf living green that stayed with it a while,Then to oblivious deluge plunged again!Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach,Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day:Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach,How hope to make assay?
Once we met, and then there cameLike a Pentecostal flame,A word;And I said not,Only thought,She heard!All I never say but sing,Worshipping;Wrapt in the hidden tongueOf an ambiguous song.
How we met what need to say?When or where,Years ago or yesterday,Here or there.All the song is—once we met,She and I;Once, but never to forget,Till we die.
All the song is that we meetNever now—'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?''Love, hast thou?'
'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said;'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she.And so we entered in and sat at talkWithin a little parlour bowered aboutWith garden-noises, filled with garden scent,As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimesAnd sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast.
We sat at talk, and all the afternoonWhispered about in changing silencesOf flush and sudden light and gathering shade,As though some Maestro drew out organ stopsSomewhere in heaven. As two within a boatOn the wide sea we sat at talk, the hoursLapping unheeded round us as the waves.And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech,Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their heartsThe infinite azure, then meet eyes againAnd flash it to each other; without wordsFirst, and then with voice trembling as trumpetsTremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced tooAs deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice,Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voiceIn dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice:So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyesInto Life's deeps—ah, how they throbbed with stars!And were we not ourselves like pulsing sunsWho, once an aeon met within the void,So fiery close, forget how far awayEach orbit sweeps, and dream a little spaceOf fiery wedding. So our hearts made answeringLightnings all that afternoon through purple mistsOf riddled speech; and when at last the sun,Our sentinel, made sign beneath the treesOf coming night, and we arose and passedAcross the threshold to the flowers again,We knew a presence walking in the grove,And a voice speaking through the evening's coolUnknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong,His rune was spoken, and another rhymeWrit in his poem by the master Life.
'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two,For daffodils were very fine that year,—O very fine, but daffodils no more.
Why did she marry him? Ah, say why!How was her fancy caught?What was the dream that he drew her by,Or was she only bought?Gave she her gold for a girlish whim,A freak of a foolish mood?Or was it some will, like a snake in him,Lay a charm upon her blood?
Love of his limbs, was it that, think you?Body of bullock build,Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew,A lusty youth unspilled?But is it so that a maid is won,Such a maiden maid as she?Her face like a lily all white in the sun,For such mere male as he!Ah, why do the fields with their white and goldTo Farmer Clod belong,Who though he hath reaped and stacked and soldHath never heard their song?Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye,The poet heard their call,And so, dear Love, will I comfort me—He hath thy lease, that's all.
Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,''Tis sweeter than thy lord;How should I envy him, my dear,The lamp upon his board.Still make his little circle brightWith boon of dear domestic light,While I afar,Watching his windows in the night,Worship a starFor which he hath no bolt or bar.Yea, dear,Thy 'bachelere.'
Two stars once on their lonely wayMet in the heavenly height,And they dreamed a dream they might shine alwayWith undivided light;Melt into one with a breathless throe,And beam as one in the night.
And each forgot in the dream so strangeHow desolately farSwept on each path, for who shall changeThe orbit of a star?Yea, all was a dream, and they still must goAs lonely as they are.
My mouth to thy mouthAh never, ah never!My breast from thy breastEternities sever;But my soul to thy soulFor ever and ever.
Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus,I know that not for usIs springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,I know this love of oursLives not, nor yet may live,By the dear food that lips and hands can give.Not, Love, that we in some high dream despiseThe common lover's common Paradise;Ah, God, if Thou and IBut one short hour their blessedness might try,How could we poor ones teachThose happy ones who half forget them rich:For if we thus endure,'Tis only, love, because we are so poor.
Down where the unconquered river still flows on,One strong free thing within a prison's heart,I drew me with my sacred grief apart,That it might look that spacious joy upon:And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me,And his face spake of the high peace of painTill all my grief glowed in me throbbinglyAs in some lily's heart might glow the rain.
So like a star I listened, till mine eyeCaught that lone land across the water-wayWherein my lady breathed,—now breathing is—'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than IShould know thy comfort, go toher, I pray.''Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'
God gave us an hour for our tears,One hour out of all the years,For all the years were another's gold,Given in a cruel troth of old.
And how did we spend his boon?That sweet miraculous flowerBorn to die in an hour,Late born to die so soon.
Did we watch it with breathless breathBy slow degrees unfold?Did we taste the innermost heart of itThe honey of each sweet part of it?Suck all its hidden goldTo the very dregs of its death?
Nay, this is all we did with our hour—We tore it to pieces, that precious flower;Like any daisy, with listless mirth,We shed its petals upon the earth;And, children-like, when it all was done,We cried unto God for another one.
O Lady, I have looked on thee once more,Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said,And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss,Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss:Captives feast richly on a little bread,So are we very rich who are so poor.
[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness]
Alone! once more alone! how like a tombMy little parlour sounds which only nowYearned like some holy chancel with his voice.So still! so empty! Surely one might fearThe walls should meet in ruinous collapseThat held no more his music. Yet they standFirm in a foolish firmness, meaninglessAs frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh builtBut never came to sleep in; built, indeed,For—that grey moth to flit in like a ghost!
Alone! another feast-day come and gone,Watched through the weeks as in my garden thereI watch a seedling grow from blade to budImpatient for its blossom. So this dayHas bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flowerAnd shared its sweetness, and once more the timeIs as that stalk from which but now I pluckedIts last June-lily as a parting sign.Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if heBut craved it in deceit of tendernessTo make my heart glow brighter with a lie!Will it indeed be cherished as he said,Or will he keep it near his book a while,And when grown rank forget it in his glass,And leave it for the maid who dusts his roomTo clear away and cast upon the heap?Or, may be, will he bury it awayIn some old drawer with other mummy-flowers?
Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so.My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I knowThy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine,Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghostSeems only bright about my lily-flower.And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thoughtThou bendest o'er it, feigning for some easeOf parted ache conceits of poet-witOn petal and on stamen—let me try!If lilies be alike thine is as this,I wonder if thy reading tallies too.
Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart,Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears;Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crownedGrowing from out the dewdrop, and a seventhSoaring alone trilobed and mystic green;Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy,Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years:But what that seventh single stamen isMy little wit must leave for thee to tell.
But neither poet nor a sibyl thou!What brave conceit had he, my poet, built;No jugglery of numbers that mean nought,That can mean nought for ever, unto us.
One asked of regret,And I made reply:To have held the bird,And let it fly;To have seen the starFor a moment nigh,And lost itThrough a slothful eye;To have plucked the flowerAnd cast it by;To have one only hope—To die.
Love, art thou lonely to-day?Lost love that I never see,Love that, come noon or come night,Comes never to me;Love that I used to meetIn the hidden past, in the landOf forbidden sweet.
Love! do you never missThe old light in the days?Does a handCome and touch thee at whilesLike the wand of old smiles,Like the breath of old bliss?Or hast thou forgot,And is all as if not?
What was it we swore?'Evermore!I and Thou,'Ah, but Fate held the penAnd wrote NJust before:So that now,See, it stands,Our seals and our hands,'I and Thou,Nevermore!'
We said 'It is best!'And then, dear, I wentAnd returned not again.Forgive that I stir,Like a breath in thy hair,The old pain,'Twas unmeant.I will strive, I will wrestIron peace—itisbest.
But, O for thy handJust to hold for a space,For a moment to standIn the light of thy face;Translate Then to Now,To hear 'Is it Thou?'And reply'It is I!'Then, then I could rest,Ah, then I could waitLong and late.
Canst thou be true across so many miles,So many days that keep us still apart?Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles,And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart?
I call thy name right up into the sky,Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark!Nay, though I toss it singing up so high,It drops again, like yon returning lark.
O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast,There croon and croodle all the lonely day;Go tell her that I love her still the best,So many days, so many miles, away.
_So sang young Love in high and holy dreamOf a white Love that hath no earthly taint,So rapt within his vision he did seemLess like a boyish singer than a saint.
Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another skyAnd find thy fellows of an equal birth.
For many a body-sweet material thing,What canst thou give us half so dear as these?We would not soar amid the stars to sing,Warm and content amid the nested trees.
Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven,We would not grow unhappy with our lot,Leave us the simple love the earth hath given—Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_.
_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songsBut unto thee belongs:Though I indeed before our true day cameMistook thy star in many a wandering flame,Singing to thee in many a fair disguise,Calling to thee in many another's name,Before I knew thine everlasting eyes.
Faces that fled me like a hunted fawnI followed singing, deeming it was Thou,Seeking this face that on our pillow nowGlimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn,And, like a setting moon, within my breastSinks down each night to rest.
Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers,Moon of the wild wild honey that is ours;Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root,Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit:And shall great Love at once perfected spring,Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_
_The lawless love that would not be denied, The love that waited, and in waiting died, The love that met and mated, satisfied.
Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls,Who would not follow where his Juliet calls?'Twas good to try and love the angel's way,With starry souls untainted of the clay;But, best the love where earth and heaven meet,The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._
(October 22, 1891.)
(Chant Royal)
O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire,The light, the music, and the honey, allBlent in one Power, one passionate DesireMan calleth Love—'Sweet love,' the blessedcall—:I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee,If thou hast pity, pity grant to me;If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bringFor all that bounty 'thirst and hungering.O Lady, save thy grace, there is no wayFor me, I know, but lonely sorrowing—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I lay in darkness, face down in the mire,And prayed that darkness might become mypall;The rabble rout roared round me like some quireOf filthy animals primordial;My heart seemed like a toad eternallyPrisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he;Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing,And life some beldam's dotard gossiping.Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway,And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Lady, I bear no high resounding lyreTo hymn thy glory, and thy foes appalWith thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire;A little lute I lightly touch and smallMy skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it beI ever woke ear-winning melody,'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string,Thy praise alone—for all my worshippingIs at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day,Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Yea! why of all men should this sorrow direUnto thy servant bitterly befall?For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tireOf thy sweet sacraments and ritual;In morning meadows I have knelt to thee,In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedlyThy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering,And in the spaces of the night heard ringThy voice in answer to the spheral lay:Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I ask no maid for all men to admire,Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall,And noble birth, and sumptuous attire,Are gauds I crave not—yet shall have withal,With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She,Whom words speak not but eyes know when theysee.Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring,And dream and glory hers for garmenting;Her birth—O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?—Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring,My life is thine, barren or blossoming;'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey:And so unto thy garment's hem I cling—Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray.
(January13, 1888.)
Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song,The changing story of the wandering questThat found at last its ending in thy breast—The love it sought and sang astray so longWith wild young heart and happy eager tongue.Much meant it all to me to seek and sing,Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bringThis 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.'
Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecyFor whose poor silver thou hast given me gold;Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fairOnly because some hints of Thee they were:Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old,How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee.
Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for usA love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be,Hold more significance 'twixt thee and meThan paltry words a truth miraculous;Or the poor signs that in astronomyTell giant splendours in their gleaming might:Yet love would still give such, as in delightTo mock their impotence—so this for thee.
This song for thee! our sweetest honeycombOf lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,Builded of gold and kisses and desire,By that wild poet who so many a timeOur hungering lips have blessed, until a fireBurnt speech up and the wordless hour had come.
O little Heart,So much I seeThy hidden smart,So much I longTo sing some songTo comfort thee.
For, little Heart,Indeed, indeed,The hour to partMakes cruel speed;Yet, dear, think thouHow even now,With happy haste,With eager feet,The hour when weAgain shall meetCometh across the waste.
Fly, little note,And know no restTill warm you lieWithin that nestWhich is her breast;Though why to theeSuch joy should beWho carest not,While I must waitHere desolate,I cannot wot.O what I 'd doTo come with you!
Primrose and Violet—May they help thee to forgetAll that love should not remember,Sweet as meadows after rainWhen the sun has come again,As woods awakened from December.How they wash the soul from stain!How they set the spirit free!Take them, dear, and pray for me.
(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)
Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,'Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding skyYearns o'er Verona, and so long agoThat kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I,Surely it is, whom morning tears apart,As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down:Is not Verona warm within thy gown,And Mantua all the world save where thou art?
O happy grace of lovers of old time,Living to love like gods, and dead to liveSymbols and saints for us who follow them;Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give:See how they wear their tears for diadem,Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme.
Go, little book, and be the looking-glassOf her dear soul,The mirror of her moments as they pass,Keeping the whole;Wherein she still may look on yesterdayTo-day to cheer,And towards To-morrow pass upon her wayWithout a fear.For yesterday hath never won a crown,However fair,But that To-day a better for its ownMight win and wear;And yesterday hath never joyed a joy,However sweet,That this To-day or that To-morrow tooMay not repeat.Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow,And present painThat's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrowNor cry in vain'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,'For then againTo-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow,A little ease to gain:But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring,'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing.
Dear Love, you ask if I be true,If other women moveThe heart that only beats for youWith pulses all of love.
Out in the chilly dew one mornI plucked a wild sweet rose,A little silver bud new-bornAnd longing to unclose.
I took it, loving new-born things,I knew my heart was warm,'O little silver rose, come inAnd shelter from the storm.'
And soon, against my body pressed,I felt its petals part,And, looking down within my breastI saw its golden heart.
O such a golden heart it has,Your eyes may never see,To others it is always shut,It opens but for me.
But that is why you see me passThe honeysuckle there,And leave the lilies in the grass,Although they be so fair;
Why the strange orchid half-accurst—Circe of flowers she grows—Can tempt me not: see! in my heart,Silver and gold, my rose.
Deep in a hidden lane we were,My little love and I;When lo! as we stood kissing there—A flower against the sky!
Frail as a tear its beauty hung—O spare it, little hand.But innocence like its, alas!Desire may not withstand.
And so I clambered up the bankAnd threw the blossom down,But we were sadder for its sakeAs we walked back to town.
Darling little woman, just a little line,Just a little silver wordFor that dear gold of thine,Only a whisper you have so often heard:
Only such a whisper as hidden in a shellHolds a little breath of all the mighty sea,But think what a little of all its depth and swell,And think what a little is this little note of me.
'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'—There is the whisper stealing from the shell,But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless,And each little wave with its whisper as well.
'Kiss me, dear Love!'—But there was none to hear,Only the darkness round about my bedAnd hollow silence, for thy face had fled,Though in my dreaming it had come so near.
I slept again and it came back to me,Burning within the hollow arch of nightLike some fair flame of sacrificial light,And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee—'Kiss me, my love!Ah, Love, thy face how fair!'So did I cry, but still thou wert not there.
I see fair women all the day,They pass and pass—and go;I almost dream that they are shadesWithin a shadow-show.
Their beauty lays no hand on me,They talk—- I hear no word;I ask my eyes if they have seen,My ears if they have heard.
For why—within the north countreeA little maid, I know,Is waiting through the days for me,Drear days so long and slow.
'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall beLike unto thee'—'Like untothee!''Her mother's'—'Nay, his father's'—'eyes,''Dear curls like thine'—but each replies,'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.'
What sweet solemnity to seeThe little life upon thy knee,And whisper as so soft it lies,—'Our little babe!'
For, whether it be he or she,A David or a Dorothy,'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,'Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries,One thing is certain,—it will beOurlittle babe.
Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame,Whose love was lust's insatiable flame—Not hers the house I would be singer inWhose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin:But mine the Venus of that morning floodWith all the dawn's young passion in her blood,With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet.Her would I sing, and of the shy retreatWhere Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood,And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid,In the most golden House that God has made.
The heart of the rose—how sweetIts fragrance to drain,Till the greedy brainReels and grows faintWith the garnered scent,Reels as a dream on its silver feet.
Sweet thus to drain—then to sleep:For, beware how you stayTill the joy pass away,And the jaded brainSeeketh fragrance in vain,And hates what it may not reap.
What of the darkness? Is it very fair?Are there great calms and find ye silence there?Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glowWith some strange peace our faces never know,With some great faith our faces never dare.Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie?Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry?Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap?Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep?Day shows us not such comfort anywhere.Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
Out of the Day's deceiving light we call,Day that shows man so great and God so small,That hides the stars and magnifies the grass;O is the Darkness too a lying glass,Or, undistracted, do you find truth there?What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?
(A Prefatory Sonnet forSANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's Magazine for the Blind)_
We, deeming day-light fair, and loving wellIts forms and dyes, and all the motley playOf lives that win their colour from the day,Are fain some wonder of it all to tellTo you that in that elder kingdom dwellOf Ancient Night, and thus we make assayDay to translate to Darkness, so to say,To talk Cimmerian for a little spell.
Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest yeShould smile on us, as once our fathers smiled,When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more;Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see,Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child—Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore?
You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may seeIn the cold dank wind of our memory?Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery—Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.
And shall life fail if one dream be sped?For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass?Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for soIn soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow,New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.'See, here are our letters, so sweet—so dead.
'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last—'twas only five minutes agoWe heard her sigh from her corner,—she sat in the kitchen, you know:We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and IHad just gone into the larder—but you could have heard that sighRight up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one byLike a puff of wind—may be 'twas her soul, who knows—And we all looked up and ran to her—just in time to see her headWas sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.'
So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards, Told of her sister's death, doing her best To match her face's colour with the news: While I in listening made a running gloss Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid. As—'in the kitchen,'rather in the way,Poor thing; 'busy on breakfast,'awkward time,Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals,You know, must be attended to what comes— (Or goes, I added for her)yes! indeed. '"She's gone at last," I said,'and better perhaps,For what had life for her but suffering?And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I,And she indeed was somewhat of a strain:O! yes, it's for the best for all of us. And still beneath all else methought I read 'What will the lodgers think, having the deadWithin the house! how inconvenient!'
What did the lodgers think? Well, I repliedIn grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,'I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeedLandladies' sisters had no right to dieAnd taint the air for nervous lodger folk;Then smoothed his brow out into decency,And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquiredThe day of burial, ending with the hopeHis lunch would not be late like yesterday.The maiden-lady living near the roofQuoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job—How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away,And how exceeding blessed is the Lord!—For she has pious features; while downstairsTwo 'medicals'—both 'decent' lads enough—Hearkened the story out like gentlemen,And said the right thing—almost looked it too!Though all the while within them laughed a seaOf student mirth, which for full half an hourThey stifled well, but then could hold no more,As soon their mad piano testified:While in the kitchen dinner was towardWith hiss and bubble from the cooking stove,And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs,And a voice called aloud—of boiling pans.
'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of lifeClose o'er the sunken head!' ReflectedI,Not that in truth I was more pitifulTo the poor dead than those about me were,Nay, but a trick of thinking much on LifeAnd Death i' the piece giveth each little strandMore deep significance—love for the wholeMust make us tender for the parts, methinks,As in some souls the equal law holds true,Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world.A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeedHas made me just as sad, or some poor beeDead in the early summer—what's the odds?Death was at '48,' and yet what sign?Who seemed to know? who could have known that called?For not a blind was lower than its wont—'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know—And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous lifeBlazed like the fires within the several grates—Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing,A closest chill as who hath sat at nightWith love beside the ingle knows the ashesIn the morning.
Death was at '48,'Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too.I ate and slept, and morning came at lengthAnd brought my Lady's letter to my bed:Thrice read and thirty kisses, came a thought,As the sweet morning laughed about the roomOf the poor face downstairs, the sunshine therePlaying about it like a wakeful childWhose weary mother sleepeth in the dawn,Pressing soft fingers round about the eyesTo make them open, then with laughing shoutMaking a gambol all her body's lengthAh me! poor eyes that never open more!And mine as blithe to meet the morning's glanceAs thirsty lips to close on thirsty lips!Poor limbs no sun could ever warm again!And mine so eager for the coming day!
On drives the road—another mile! and stillTime's horses gallop down the lessening hillO why such haste, with nothing at the end!Fain are we all, grim driver, to descendAnd stretch with lingering feet the little wayThat yet is ours—O stop thy horses, pray!
Yet, sister dear, if we indeed had graceTo win from Time one lasting halting-place,Which out of all life's valleys would we choose,And, choosing—which with willingness would lose?Would we as children be content to stay,Because the children are as birds all day;
Or would we still as youngling lovers kiss,Fearing the ardours of the greater bliss?The maid be still a maid and never knowWhy mothers love their little blossoms soOr can the mother be content her budShall never open out of babyhood?
Ah yes, Time flies because we fain would fly,It is such ardent souls as you and I,Greedy of living, give his wings to him—And now we grumble that he uses them!